I'll probably due a Sunday Morning Book Thread focusing on "imperial" stories. I find it to be a fascinating subject as I read a lot of books that are set within a vast galactic empire. Brian Aldiss collected a number of short stories that all explore ideas of where humanity might go as a species as we advance out among the stars. Is a galactic empire even possible?

This is very much a tongue-in-cheek look at an alien first-contact story. It's not meant to be taken seriously at all, though Coonts does pose some interesting questions about how humanity would react as a species if we believed that someone on Earth had access to an alien anti-aging drug that could potentially lead to immortality. Would the drug companies want to mass market it? Or would the suppress it? Or would they deliberately limit supply so only the wealthy elite would benefit? How far will humans go in pursuit of this miraculous substance?

This the classic adventure story by the author of Sherlock Holmes.

Like all great adventure tales, it starts with a young man who wants to get laid. The woman he's courting insists that she can only be with someone of heroic stature.

Edward Malone, a young reporter for a third-rate London publication, decides that in order to win over her heart he will have to embark on a grand adventure. He finds a scientist who had returned from an expedition to South America with outlandish tales of giant monsters never seen before. The scientific society to which Professor Challenger belongs is highly skeptical. But in order to settle the issue, they agree to send him and a couple of observers to verify his claims. Malone is sent along by his newspaper to document the journey.

This is a classic story for a reason and it has inspired countless pulp fiction tales since it was published in 1912. Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park, for instance, is clearly an homage to Doyle's story.

Philip Jose Farmer's The Dungeon is also heavily, heavily inspired by The Lost World, particularly in how the story is framed as an expedition funded by a newspaper to search for a missing noble heir in an explored region of the world (Africa instead of South America).

I definitely recommend The Lost World if you want to read a gripping adventure story. It seems cliche at times, but that's because this is where the cliches *began*.

THE TRANSCREDIBLE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN ZAPP BRANNIGAN! HADRIAN SAWBACK!

This is a satire and parody of Star Trek featuring a captain who is approximately 3 parts Captain James T. Kirk, 1 part Captain Zapp Brannigan from Futurama, and 1 part Captain Chode from Tripping the Rift.

He's not quite as cowardly as Brannigan, but he's also not very bright. Mostly Captain Sawback succeeds through a lot of stupendous luck and a towering sense of his own infinite superiority over the Affiliation of Civilized Planets, which is run like most large bureaucracies everywhere.

I had heard mixed reviews of the stories written by Brian Herbert (Frank Herbert's son) and Kevin J. Anderson that are set in the Dune universe. However, I got this cheap at a library book sale recently and decided to give it go.

Prequel novels have one fatal weakness: the characters have plot armor that prevents them from dying if they show up in the main storyline later. However, we do get to see the events that lead up to the main storyline, which can be engaging and interesting when done well. I was pleasently surprised in how Brian and Kevin expanded the lore of the Dune universe. It's not perfect, but they do seem to try to adhere to Frank Herbert's original intent as best they could. In the afterword, Brian and Kevin both share how they came to collaborate on this novel. According to Brian, it would not have happened if somone hadn't discovered Frank Herbert's notes on the unwritten seventh Dune novel, which was supposed to wrap the plot threads from Chapterhouse: Dune, but was never finished due to Frank's untimely death in 1986.

I had some misgivings at first about reading this book, but I wanted to give the story a fair shake and I'm glad I did. I enjoyed it enough that I immediately ordered the next two books in the series. I don't know if I'll read them all, but I may go ahead and read Frank Herbert's last three books in the series.

It's a weird, weird universe that Frank Herbert created and Brian/Kevin have added considerably to that weirdness. It's not for everyone, though. One of the more unusual aspects of this world is that there do not appear to be any alien intelligences on the million worlds of the Galactic Empire. Plenty of alien lifeforms, but none of them have sentience. Humanity has dispersed itself to conquer the galaxy, though some branches have mutated to the point where they've become alien to their original species (looking at you Spacing Guild Navigators).

This is one of Dean Koontz's lighter and wackier horror stories. Two random strangers are injected with "stuff" that's promised to enhance them in some unspecified way. Now Dylan and Jilly must join together, along with Dylan's autistic younger brother Shepherd, to unravel the mystery of the "stuff," understand how it's changed them, and also dodge government operatives who presumably want to capture them and the "stuff" that's inside their veins.

It's not all fun and games, though, as Dylan and Jilly are drawn towards truly monstrous people engaged in horrific activities and it's up to the two of them to use their unique gifts to stop these monsters at any cost.